


I can't remember your name

by LadyIrina



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, HYDRA sucks, M/M, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Stucky - Freeform, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 18:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21202265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/pseuds/LadyIrina
Summary: What happened to Bucky during his brainwashing years? How did he go from being Bucky to the Winter Soldier?





	I can't remember your name

The first time Bucky wakes up, he's being dragged along the ground, sliding on top of the snow, bleeding and barely conscious of his surroundings. He feels pain, a lot of pain, in his body, in his mangled arm.  
He blinks and the next thing he sees is a ceiling.  
He must have blacked out. He hears voices, sees people hovering over him, but he can't make out words or faces. He does see the extent of the damage to his arm, though, and has a strangely detached reaction to seeing it. 

He hears Zola's voice.  
When hands grab his arm, the pain becomes too much and Bucky passes out under a tidal wave of agony.

He vaguely remembers the sound of a machine buzzing, like a saw, the sensation of them cutting into his arm and him screaming.

-

The next time Bucky wakes up, he's nauseous and confused. He has no idea where he is. He's staring up at a different ceiling than before. He discovers his arm is different too. It moves like his hand, acts like his hand, but it is a synthetic appendage and it doesn't feel anything.  
  
But Bucky feels and he feels an anger unlike anything he's ever experienced before. 

He locks the metal hand around the throat of one of the men who did this to him, squeezes, wanting nothing more than to see him dead.

There is the brief sting of a needle piercing his skin and the strength leaves his body. He tries to fight it, but it is in vain. He's drifting off and this time his screams are only inside his head.

-

When Bucky wakes up, he has trouble remembering. His body is cold, sluggish, hurting, but his mind is what bothers him the most. It takes several minutes for him to remember who he is and what has happened to him. 

He's in some army facility, it seems. Heavy concrete walls surrounds him, it's dark and gloomy. It's only on the second day that he is restored enough to punch the man hovering next to him.  
They place Bucky in a chair, strap him down, and soon the electricity rages through him and the words begins.  
Bucky screams.

They do this for days, allowing him only to rest a couple of hours between each turn, and Bucky spends them curled up on an army cot. He constantly shifts between hope and despair. Despair over the fact that Steve most likely thinks he's dead and won't even be looking for him. Hope, because Steve had refused to accept that Bucky was dead and had marched into a Hydra camp to save him in the past.

-

When the pain and the words stop one day, he is heaving for air and shivering hard before he realizes they are talking to him. “Soldat.” They call him. He accepts the name, can't remember any other, and lets them help him to his feet. They hand him weapons, make him fire at targets, do hand-to-hand combat with others and asks him all kinds of questions. He does what he is told, even if it feels wrong. He feels wrong.

As night falls, locked in his cell and lying on the cot, dreams reveals to him what he has forgotten. Bucky. His name is Bucky. James Buchanan Barnes. 

When the door opens the next morning and they come to fetch him for more tests, Bucky makes a break for it. He fights his way down the hallway, he's so much stronger than he used to be, and doesn't hesitate to steal their weapons as well. He almost makes it, almost, they seem hesitant to shoot back at him, but then a needle is jammed into his neck and Bucky feels the power leave his body and he slumps to the floor.  
  
Half-unconscious, dragged back into the depths of the army base, Bucky wonders if Steve really does think he's dead this time.

-

More pain, more words, Soldat is shivering hard by the time they stop. He is ready to comply. The phrase tastes wrong in his mouth, but it is what his brain makes him say. The soldiers in the room eye him suspiciously, but he doesn't care. He is awaiting his orders.

They train all kinds of fighting techniques, hands him weapons, fire arms and blades, and makes him practice until they are as a part of his body.  
After several days, they orders him into a machine. He follows orders.

There is a hiss and white smoke or steam rises up around Soldat and suddenly he sees his reflection in the glass before him. He sees his face and remembers.

Bucky's hand flies up to touch the reflection just as the ice engulfs him and freezes him into cryo-sleep.

-

When he wakes up, he is too cold and weak to really think. He just tries to focus on breathing while people are hauling him along to wherever they want him.  
The pain, God it hurts so much, and the words brings him back. Soldat is ready to comply.

He is taught Russian and several other languages. He doesn't like to talk, but they tell him it is necessary. They teach him new weapons and he is far more comfortable with that.  
He is ordered to make his first kill. 

It is a terrified Russian soldier who clearly has done something to displease his superiors. Soldat is ordered into a large, empty room with this man. The man cries and pleads for his life.  
Something stirs inside Soldat, he hesitates, he almost remembers something, it tickles at the edge of his mind, but then the man tries to lunge at him with a knife and Soldat snaps his neck within seconds. After that, Soldat just feels empty for the longest time.

This time he enters cryo-sleep with something close to relief.

-

Cold followed by pain and words, it's the same thing the next time he is torn back to the real world.  
Soldat feels the discomfort even after the chair is turned off, but he's programmed to ignore it. His mission is everything.

The first time he's allowed outside the army base, he stalls a little, like a caged animal which has no concept of how to deal with the world outside of where it has been kept, but the mission has to be carried out and he forces the discomfort away.

He hunts a man across the frozen plains, another Russian soldier, and watches the blood on the snow for several minutes after the man is dead. Soldat remembers blood on the snow, but grabbing a hold of the memory is like trying to hold water in his hand. His hand? Lifting his vibranium hand, he stares at it, slowly closing and opening his fist...  
A voice calls out for him over the radio and Soldat snaps out of his thoughts.

Mission complete. He returns to base. He returns to cryo-sleep.

-

Bucky wakes up from the cold feeling like he's drowning. Hands grab a hold of him and hauls him out of the container and he whimpers as his legs won't carry him. His heart is racing, his mind is spinning and he is so very confused.  
What is going on? What is happening? Where are they taking him?

He sees the chair and his body reacts violently with fear while his brain struggles to remember why.  
Bucky knows the chair means pain and horror so he frantically tries to struggle free. He manages to fight off one man, but three more soldiers take his place and they force him into the chair despite his desperate resistance.

Soon after that the pain begins and Bucky is torn away, screaming, Soldat takes his place.  
The screaming stops.

They are reluctant to send him out on the planned mission, keep asking him strange questions, but Soldat merely answers and waits for more orders.  
In the end, they decide to put him back on ice.

“Too unstable.” Is the last thing he hears.

-

The next time they bring him out of the darkness, they are cautious. But the man dragged to the chair is a confused mess and when Soldat emerges, he knows his purpose and is content with that.  
They send him to a small village, showing him a picture of his target and unleashes the Winter Soldier.

Soldat completes his mission, stands over his fallen prey and feels nothing. He is completely unaware of the tears in his eyes.

He returns to base and they bring him into the medical-wing to preform endless tests on him until they seem satisfied with the result.  
As they talk amongst themselves, Soldat sees the faint reflection of himself in one of the windows and stares absently at it.  
Is that him? It looks like him, but at the same time it doesn't. He has no idea which is out of place; the blank expression on his face or the mute agony in his eyes.

He doesn't want to go back to the ice this time, it feels like dying every time he does, but of course he has no choice.  
Soldat has to comply.

-

They keep bringing him out of the darkness, out of the cold, torture his brain into compliance and Soldat does as he's told. Wherever they send him, he does as he's told.  
There are times when he doesn't want to, but he can still see his body doing what is ordered despite how he feels about it and it adds another layer of agony which is lingering just underneath the numbness.

He is on a mission in Spain when he sees the back of a broad-shouldered blond man walking down the street from where he is crouched down waiting for his target to appear. Soldat sees this man and it is like someone punches him in the face.  
Adrenaline rushes through his veins, he isn't aware of dropping his weapon to the ground and seconds later, he is running down the street like he is being chased by the devil himself.

_-Steve_, his brain keeps repeating the name as if it means something to him. -_Steve!_

As he reaches out to take a hold of the man's upper arm, as the man turns to face him, he remembers and Bucky realizes he's not looking at Steve, just someone who looks similar and very confused.  
He releases the man, spins around, heaving for air, ignoring the orders shouted at him through the radio.  
Bucky sees his reflection in a store window and freezes. He hardly recognizes himself in a strange uniform and with shaggy hair falling into his eyes. He has to get away. He has to run. He has to find Steve. Everything will be okay if he can just find Steve.

Bucky manages to run two and a half block before they catch him and he screams until the tranquillizers bring him under.

-

He wakes from cryo with the faint taste of a name on his tongue. He's too exhausted and cold to fight them off when they drag him out of the room and to the chair.  
The pain and the words pushes out any other thought than obedience.  
Soldat is sent out to kill and he does. 

One night when he's out on a mission to assassinate an important politician, Soldat dreams about a blond man and he wakes up crying, he doesn't understand why, he only understands his mission and he doesn't hesitate.

He doesn't look back at the screaming and the insane amount of police sirens.  
They push their luck and sends him out on a second mission right away without putting him on ice first. Soldat doesn't mind. He only cares about his mission.  
He returns after yet another success and allows them to put him back under ice.

Soldat doesn't dream this time.

-

He hears voices before he can open his eyes. This is unusual. Every other time they have been silent as he wakes and silent when they drag him to the chair.  
His mind is sluggish and reluctant to work at all. He is left inside the cryo container until he's almost fully awake and that's when the door finally opens.

They bring him to the medical-wing instead of the chair and they strap him down on a bed before leaving him alone. The silence is soothing and pleasant since his skin crawls non-stop with unease.  
It takes hours before he concludes that there must have been a malfunctioning in the cryo container and even longer before he starts wondering why he can't remember who he is.  
No one pays any attention to him, not counting a lone nurse stops by to take a blood sample without talking to him, so he is left to put the pieces together without any other interruptions.

He has a name, he can't quite remember what it is, but he knows he was called Bucky. He remembers someone calling out 'Bucky' as he falls.

He remembers that voice. He wants to hear that voice again. He needs to hear it so badly it is beyond desperation.  
Bucky wants to go home.  
He doesn't know where that is. He just knows that 'home' means wherever that voice can be found.

The cryo container is repaired later that evening and Bucky fights back the tears as he is put on ice.

-

Every time they bring him out, often in different countries, they present new weapons for him to learn. More languages too. The common soldier's uniform changes some times. Even the outside world changes around him. But the pain and the words stay the same.

The times when he suddenly lashes out, accidentally killing fellow soldiers with his brute strength, when the fury inside becomes too much for him to handle, Soldat accepts the punishment that follows. It doesn't stop it from happening again.  
He kills, he detonates bombs, he sets fires and he acquires items his handlers want. Soldat obeys.

They try to create others like him. Better, they say.  
Whatever hope he has that their presence will turn the focus away from him is quickly shattered. His missions and training continues.  
He stops thinking he has any say over his own body, he's merely a weapon after all.  
He's tired, almost always exhausted, but Soldat does what he's told. Soldat completes his mission.

Shooting his target through another person? He doesn't hesitate.  
He roars in anger now, not despair.

He is the Winter Soldier and he is what the normal soldier fear.

-

They bring him out from the ice and once the pain and the words have settled Soldat into his mind, he is given his mission.  
His target escapes when he blows up his car, but it's not that much later that Soldat later takes out his target, who is trying to hide inside an apartment, with a sniper rifle from the top of a building. He is then somewhat surprised when he is chased by a blond man able to keep up with him as he runs towards the extraction site. Soldat considers killing this man when he forces him to stop by flinging a damn shield at him. But there are no kill orders on anyone except his target, so he throws the shield back at him and makes his escape.

Hydra has always been set on its goals, but now it seems more determined than ever.  
Soldat is sent straight back out again. This time he is given a small group as backup, that he doesn't need, and aims to complete his mission at any cost.  
Target Sitwell is accomplished easily enough, but the blond man and his two accomplices turns out to be more troublesome.

Especially the blond man.

Soldat has the red haired woman in his sights when the man comes charging at him.  
They fight and for once, Soldat finds an opponent who gives as good as he gets, almost breaking his ribs at one point. Also, no matter how hard he tries, Soldat can't land a stab on the blond and it pisses him off to no end. It is so infuriating!

~

Everything changes when the man accidentally rips off Soldat's mask and there is confusion and disbelief on his face at the sight of what is revealed.

“Bucky?” The man says, like he truly can't believe what he is seeing.  
Soldat doesn't hesitate. “Who the hell is Bucky?” And uses the man's confusion to lift his gun to end this stupid fight.

He never gets the chance to fire as something slams into the back of his head and sends him sprawling to the ground. Within seconds, he's back up on his feet, but it is like the impact had knocked something loose inside his skull.  
_-Bucky?_ The voice echoes in his head. His heart begins to race. The voice. That name. There is something about that voice and that name...

Soldat hesitates, his eyes flicker briefly to one side as his mind is suddenly scrambling like a desperate thing for memories he no longer can recall but knows is important.

**-Soldat!** A different voice barks.  
Soldat snaps out of it and quickly lifts his gun to finish the mission, only to see the red haired woman firing a grenade at him and forces him into retreat.

_Bucky?_ The voice continues to ask.

~

Soldat can't forget that god-damn voice. There is something about that voice!  
Things -Memories?- flashes in front of his eyes. Fleeting things. Gone as quickly as they appear.

He lashes out at one of the men working on repairing his arm, feeling a distant satisfaction when he goes flying, but doesn't bother trying anything else as everyone has their gun on him within seconds.  
Why won't the voice stop?? Why is he so desperate for... something?  
They try talking to him, but Soldat is lost within his mind. He is searching for answers. There is something about that voice. Something familiar. He has heard that voice before, he's certain of it.

A hard slap to his face snaps him out of his daze and he glances over at Pierce.  
“The man on the bridge... Who was he?” He knew him. The longer he thinks about it, the more certain he becomes. He can almost picture him from a different life. “I knew him.”

Pierce talks about Hydra, about their big plans, but Soldat doesn't care. He never has. He's a weapon. He fights, but it is their fight. He follows orders.  
So when Pierce orders him wiped, although knowing how much it will hurt, although knowing it will take away the voice and any memory he has of it, Soldat obeys.

He doesn't want to do this, yet he allows them to push him back into the chair and he accepts the mouth piece they hold out to him. He can't help flinching and tensing up when the restraints grabs a hold of him. His body knows what is going to happen and trembles, heaves for air, and he fails to hold back a faint sound of dread when the contraption lowers itself to his head.  
When the horrible pain hits him, he screams.

-

He comes out of the darkness, Soldat, and they give him his orders. 

When he stands facing the man people refer to as 'Cap' or 'Captain' inside the Helicarrier, Soldat knows he can't afford to fail again. His head still feels raw, his body is still covered in bruises, which means he has failed a mission and has been sent out again without any time to recover. If he fails again, they will probably hurt him even more. He can't fail. Please, don't let him fail.

They fight. This stranger is frustratingly good at hand to hand combat. He's strong, but Soldat only realizes just how strong when the man grabs him by the throat and hoists him up into the air like a rag doll. (As far as Soldat has seen, the man has no artificial limbs to explain his strength.)  
They fight over a computer chip but things get difficult when the man gets Soldat into a lock and dislocates his still human shoulder with a loud pop.  
Soldat screams but he doesn't let go of the computer chip. He can't. He can't fail another mission!

He doesn't stop struggling before the man has strangled him unconscious.

When he recovers, Soldat sees the man making his way back up to the computer. Soldat struggles back up on his feet, his injured arm close to non-functional, but he manages to pull his gun and starts putting bullets into his target.  
He is still dizzy after the choking, the fighting and the mind wipe. That's why he doesn't manage to land a head-shot.  
Right?

~

The world collapses around them as the Helicarriers begins shooting at each other.  
Soldat is trapped under some falling debris, too exhausted and hurt to dodge fast enough, and more pain rages through him.  
He feels a mix between contempt and surprise when the stranger climbs back down to help him, but he isn't stupid enough not to exploit the situation and free himself. 

“You know me.” The man suddenly says and in such a convinced way that it rings true.

Something clenches hard inside Soldat's chest, something tells him that going down that road is going to hurt even more than the chair, and he automatically lashes out, plants a hard punch at the man's shield. “No, I don't!”  
The man gets back up again. They are both panting, unsteady on their feet. Soldat is in so much pain, old and new injuries teaming up, but that is nothing compared to the fear he can feel at the back of his head. This man frightens him. Why?

“Bucky.” The man says. Pleads. “You've known me your whole life.”

That voice. Soldat knows that voice. He knows that name. Bucky? Oh God, they are going to hurt him so much this time. It's going to be even worse! Soldat lashes out again, hitting him in the face.  
“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.” The man continues, too stubborn to stop.  
The name feels like a bullet to his gut and Soldat panics. “SHUT UP!” He roars, punching him yet again, sending him flying, but the fear doesn't subside. It just keeps getting worse. That name. That voice. And when the man removes his helmet as he gets back up, Soldat knows he knows that face too! His brain is scrambling like a terrified cat falling through the air.

“I'm not gonna fight you.” The man says and drops the shield, swaying on his feet. “You're my friend.”

~

Soldat charges, takes him down. “You're my mission.” He starts punching, repeating it as if that would make it true: “You're. My. Mission!” He can't stop! He can't fail! They will hurt him again! He's Soldat. He's the Winter Soldier. He must accomplish his mission! He doesn't know Bucky! He has no idea who this James Buchanan Barnes is! Probably someone who would never do the things he has done. He keeps punching until his already tired body wails its objection.

The man doesn't fight back, doesn't try to defend himself, merely says; “Then finish it.” There is a sadness to him, like he has lost his best friend. “Because I'm with you... to the end of the line.”

Panting, hand raised to keep punching him, body and soul aching, Soldat hears the words and suddenly he can't move. All the hurt, the fear, the confusion, the loneliness, everything wells up and he can't move. These words feel even stronger than the words they use when they bring him out of the ice. These words unlock someone other than Soldat.

He can feel tears welling up in his eyes as a voice inside his head, a voice sounding an awful lot like his own, **screams** for him to stop hurting his friend.

Then a part of the ship collapses and Steve falls with the debris while Soldat, no, Bucky, or whomever he is, automatically grabs a hold of the edge and dangles over the ocean for several heartbeats. He watches Steve's shape become smaller until he hits the ocean and disappears under the surface.  
His mission is accomplished. Time to return to extraction site. Report. Be put back under.

Soldat blinks. Bucky blinks. Soldat shakes his head. Bucky draws a shivering breath.

_'til the end of the line..._

The vibranium hand opens and he lets himself fall. 

~

Dragging Steve out of the water, the Winter Soldier lets go and looks down at him. He's bloody and badly injured, but he'll live and that is what is important.  
A part of the Winter Soldier wants to kneel down and stay with him, but he knows he can't. He's not safe to be around, if Hydra uses the words he will attack Steve again.

Also, the Bucky that Steve remembers is long gone, now merely a ghost whispering inside the Winter Soldier's head, and the things he has done is beyond forgiveness.  
This Bucky has no idea who he is, he just knows that he is not the man Steve thinks he is and he is not the weapon Hydra wants, not any more.  
He can't stay and he can't go back.

He has to find out who he is.  
He just wishes it didn't hurt so much to walk away from Steve.

Turning around, he staggers along the muddy banks and refuses to look back. If he looks back, he'll change his mind and he can't do that. He has to walk away. For Steve. For everyone.

Maybe with time, he will remember. He will find out what happened to James Buchanan Barnes. Maybe then he will at least have the memories of whatever he and Steve was. He hopes so.

Alone, broken and scared, that hope is all he has.


End file.
